Savills has been appointed as sole adviser to M7 Real Estate for the fund’s entire office portfolio. Savills will be responsible for office space leasing and property management. The portfolio comprises a total of approximately 73,500 sqm across seven buildings located in four cities: Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw and Katowice.

Savills World Research says that offices in core city markets around the world will be real estate investors’ focus in 2020, but with opportunities scarce and yields at record lows, many will be forced to look elsewhere. Alternative assets, such as student housing, multi-family, co-living and data centres, will therefore become increasingly mainstream. Globally, Savills says that securing income returns will remain the overarching theme for real estate investment in 2020.

Star Capital Investments has acquired Lighthouse Towers, a Class A office building in Prague 7’s thriving Holešovice district. The seller was Deka Immobilien. The property comprises two stand-alone buildings joined at the underground parking level, where 360 parking spaces are provided.

Patrizia Immobilien AG has sold the Feniks office building in Warsaw to a South Korean investor via Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate. Savills advised the buyer in the transaction.

Another excellent year for the investment market, record office lease transactions in Warsaw and the burgeoning growth of alternative asset classes - these are some of the Polish commercial property market highlights of 2019. Savills forecasts that next year the market’s performance will depend on the health of the global economy, and key developments will include the completion of spectacular office towers and mixed-use projects.

European office take-up is forecast to reach 9.2 million sqm by the end of 2019, down 4% from 2018’s end-year volume. Prague is expected to exceed that decline, with take-up predicted to fall by 22% to 400,000 sqm as demand for office space in the Czech capital continues the downward trend that began in Q2, according to the latest Savills research.

The share of private sector student accommodation in Prague stood at 6% of the total stock of purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) in October 2019, up slightly from the 5% recorded at the same time last year, according to the latest Savills research.

Commercial property investment activity exceeded €8 billion across Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania in the first three quarters of 2019, 54% above the five year average, according to Savills latest research report. Investment turnover in CEE has been rising steadily since 2013, by 24% per annum on average, reflecting increasing investor confidence in the region, underpinned by above EU average economic expansion, falling unemployment and growing consumerism.

Savills has announced a pioneering residential property service in the Czech Republic with LEXXUS, the premier residential real estate advisor in Prague.  This unique combination of international real estate advisor and leading local real estate agency will provide a full spectrum of services in this dynamic segment of the Czech market.

Corporate Finance House Group, a Middle Eastern investor, has acquired the holding structure owning Day Tower office building in Bucharest, developed by Dimitris Mourkakos of Day Group and completed at the end of 2018. The investor was advised by Savills on its first investment in the country, while the developer was assisted by Crosspoint Real Estate.